After my own hearing loss, I created Hearing Mojo for hard-of-hearing people and the industry that serves them to share information, stories, news of products and technology and discussion about hearing-loss issues and advocacy for change. My name is David Copithorne, and I live in the Boston area. Since 2002, when I suffered a sudden and severe hearing impairment, I’ve spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars discovering ways to cope with the situation. I have gathered a tremendous amount of valuable information. I decided a blog would be the perfect vehicle for sharing what I’ve learned and for others to post their experiences and advice.
I am a long-time marketing and communications consultant and started my career in newspaper journalism and magazine publishing. When I suffered my sudden bi-lateral hearing loss, most likely from a combination of Meniere’s disease and auto-immune inner ear disease, my life as a professional communicator changed quite dramatically. For six months in 2002-2003, I couldn’t even use the telephone. When my hearing stabilized I was able to use the phone with the proper amplification, but I was severely impaired and had to use the most powerful digital hearing aids and assistive listening devices to communicate at work and with my family.
The adjustment and tradeoffs were enormous. I had to learn how to communicate all over again in entirely new ways. But I also learned how new technologies have helped eliminate much of the isolation that afflicts people with severe hearing impairment. So, being an ex-journalist and somewhat of a gadget freak from all my years in the technology industry, I started Hearing Mojo. It’s been a very gratifying experience as I’ve been able to connect with a vibrant, activist community of people who are deaf and hard of hearing. The links from my site to other hearing-loss sites provide an easy entry into this world for anyone with or without hearing loss.
I hope you enjoy what you read, and I invite you to join the conversation and use the comment forms at the end of posts you find interesting or provocative.
My biography:
In addition to publishing Hearing Mojo, I currently operate a small marketing and communications consulting firm, Aquarius Advisers in Cambridge, MA. Previously I was CEO of Porter Novelli International, one of the world’s largest public relations firms. When I started out as a journalist in the late 1970s, it was never my plan to work in public relations. Like a lot of journalists, I looked down on PR as a somewhat less-than-honorable calling. But after covering the government’s historic antitrust cases against IBM and AT&T, I made technology (and the business of technology) my beat. I became fascinated by entrepreneurs using the power of integrated-circuit technology to change the world in amazing ways. Then, Rupert Murdoch announced he was buying the newspaper I was working for. At the time, he was building his media empire with newspapers like the New York Post, famous for screaming headlines such as “Headless Body Found in Topless Bar.” I decided PR wasn’t such a dishonorable profession after all, in comparison. I quit the paper and started doing PR work for technology companies.
In the late 1980s I co-founded Copithorne & Bellows Public Relations, which became one of the most successful high-tech marketing services companies in Silicon Valley. C&B worked with venture capital-funded start-up companies as well as leaders such as Hewlett-Packard. We grew from a two-person consultancy to a global firm with more than 300 people in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific, and we made the Inc. 100 list of America’s fastest growing private companies. When we were acquired by the Omnicom Group, a huge marketing and advertising holding company, we merged with another Omnicom subsidiary, Porter Novelli International. The combination created one of the world’s 10 largest public relations firms, with nearly $200 million in revenue and 1,500 employees in 53 countries throughout the world. From 2000 to 2002, I served first as President and then as CEO of Porter Novelli International. In addition to working with global consumer, technology and healthcare companies, I learned a lot from Porter Novelli’s leadership of the emerging field of social marketing, including its award-winning work with the anti-tobacco Legacy Foundation.
In 2002, after years of constant worldwide travel, I left Porter Novelli to spend time with my young family. Since then I have worked as a marketing consultant and investor with start-up companies. Among other things, I served as the part-time Chief Marketing Officer of Outside The Classroom (OTC), a venture capital-backed social enterprise that developed AlcoholEdu, a web-based prevention program for colleges and high schools. In 2004, our three-person OTC marketing group won the “Small Corporate Communications Team of the Year” award in the prestigious national PRWeek Awards competition. I am also an unpaid advisor and guest lecturer with the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Soon after my career change in 2002, I lost most of my hearing, and after several years of learning to cope, I started Hearing Mojo. I hope you enjoy the site.